0444_Bk

Vll.--Geography of China tn the
times of Confucius.
99
China during the Confucian period may be said to have
been confined within the borders of a parallelogram,
whose northern line ran somewhere near the Great Wall,
(built circ. B. C. 2x4) ; whose eastern line was the sea
coast; whose southern was the Yangtze, and whose
western was the borders of Kansuh and Ss_tch'uan. The
coast seems to have been little known, and with the
exception of the wilds of the Shantung Promontory, was
probably a great stretch of unreclaimed marshy land.
Surrounding this territory dwelt many indigenous
tribes, to the east and north-east the I _ ; to the north
the Ti 'J_; to the south the Man _; and to the west
the Jung j_, With numerous branches of these tribes
the Chinese were in constant communication, either by
way of peaceful barter and exchange of commodities, or
with weapons of warfare.
The Empire was divided into many States, which had
varied in number in different periods from, it is said, i8oo
in the early days of the Chou Dynasty, to x24 shortly
before our Sage's advent, and to a nominal "seventy t_so "
during his lifetime. Most of them were exceedingly
small, often little more than a town and its suburbs. The
following list gives the names of the more powerful of
these States, approximately in the order of their strength.*